Worms Sent to the Farm

March 21, 2010

Urban composting — what a beautiful idea!

I bought this “Wriggly Wranch” from Cole Hardware years ago, and remember having to ask the guy to help me find my first Red Wrigglers (bad for fishing, great for composting.) The little critters were in a little Chinese take-out container on the shelf between other boxes of products — surreal.

Two reasons have prompted us to end our adventures in vermiculture:

1. Our outdoor space is so small that we are unable to use the quantities of “black gold” that the little critters produce based on our regular level of vegetable waste. We tried mixing it in with other soil, but realized that we were putting in too much, and the plants were “cooking” from the intensity of the nutrients. When people asked why we were going to all this effort, we were having trouble coming up with a good answer.

2. Last Spring a Black Widow spider moved into our back patio, killed a huge bumble bee in one of the drain pipes in the retaining wall, and laid eggs. Turns out, our worm bin has the perfect combination of insect traffic and jutting corners to be an ideal web-ground for adolescent spiders. A Black Widow is where we draw the line.

Vermitransfer Complete

Luckily, one of our neighbors recently reclaimed the green space inside the freeway off-ramp across from our house, turning it into a lovely permaculture space. Lee got in touch with her, and told her about our situation. She was thrilled to get the worms, and told Lee to drop them off a few weekends ago.

Hope you like your new home, little guys!

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